GUIDELINES FOR WRITING SCIENCE LAB REPORTS

Sharing the results of scientific activity with other scientists is an integral part of the scientific
process. You can perform a brilliant experiment, yet if you cannot clearly explain your results
and convince the reader of their importance, the experiment will go unnoticed. In a recent
survey of employers of scientists, a lack of communication skills (in particular written
communication skills) was the greatest deficiency found in their employees. Seventy percent of
employers said that their employees were poor writers.

A scientific paper must fulfill two objectives. First, it must accurately describe the procedures
that were followed and the results that were obtained. Second, it must place these results in
perspective by relating them to the existing state of knowledge and by interpreting their
significance for future study.

Scientific papers are written in a standard format with the following sections; abstract,
introduction, materials and methods, results, and discussion. References and figures are
usually included after the discussion. Each section contains specific information about the
research being described. In the following document, a description of the information found in
each section will be outlined, along with some common mistakes made by students. The best
way to get a feel for how a scientific paper is organized is by looking at articles in primary
journals. There are many such journals in the library.

All formal papers should be typed, double-spaced and checked for spelling and
grammatical errors.

In the following pages specific details of what goes into each section of the paper will be
described. In general there are six things that all scientific papers should do:

(1) Trace the scientific origins of the research problem.

(2) Summarize the state of knowledge on the subject.

(3) State the critical hypothesis being tested in the research project.

(4) Interpret the results of the study in relation to these hypotheses and to the general state
of knowledge.

(5) Identify the scientific questions and procedural weaknesses that need to be addressed in
the future.

(6) Be concise.
Title

The title should provide a prospective reader with sufficient information about the content of the
report to recognize whether it is likely to be of interest to him/her. While it is important to be
short and concise (essentially one sentence) you do not want to be vague or incorrect. The title
should reflect exactly what you did in your study. This is also your first shot at grabbing the
reader’s attention.

o The most common problem is a title that is too general, i.e. 'Enzymes'. A title like this
implies that the paper will deal with EVERY aspect of enzymes that is known.
o A second common error is that the title refers to a minor part of the work or to an
irrelevant aspect. See 'Examples' for typical errors of this type.

Examples: Here is a short description of an experiment, with some good and bad titles to
describe it.

The enzyme polyphenol oxidase is found in many plants as a protection against wounding. In
this experiment the enzyme was extracted from both potatoes and apples. The reaction rate of
both enzymes was examined at temperatures ranging from 0-25 degrees Celsius. Catechol was
used as a substrate and the reaction was monitored by determining the change in absorbance
at 595 nm. Both showed a linear increase of activity with increasing temperature, although the
enzyme from the apple was consistently more active than that from the potato, when expressed
on an activity per mg tissue basis.

Some possible titles might be:

 Polyphenol oxidase activity in both potatoes and apples is temperature-

dependent.
 An investigation of the effect of temperature on the activity of polyphenol oxidase
from potatoes and apples.

*Both of these provide the key result of the investigation, activity is related to temperature and
mention the two sources of the enzyme.

Some problem titles might be:

 Polyphenol oxidase
 Too general, you are only looking at a very small aspect of what is known about
the enzyme
 Wound healing in potatoes and apples
 Largely irrelevant: although the enzyme may be used this way, that is not what
the experiment was about.
 Apples have more polyphenol oxidase than do potatoes.
 Again, not the main focus of the experiment.
Abstract

An abstract summarizes your paper or presentation in one concise paragraph (usually less than
250 words). The abstract should state the objective of the study, methods employed,
summarized results and primary conclusions. It is usually easiest to write the abstract after
completing the other sections of the paper.

A sample of a well-written abstract:

Mass mortality and extinction in a high-elevation population of Rana mucosa. David F.

Bradford. Environmental Science and Engineering Program, School of Public Health, University
of California, Los Angeles, California 90024 USA.

ABSTRACT: Rana mucosa is one of several high-elevation amphibians that have recently
disappeared from seemingly pristine sites. The present study documents an event of mass
mortality among larval and metamorphosed R. mucosa in a lake in Kings Canyon National Park,
California, and the ultimate extinction of the population. In 1979 metamorphosed individuals
declined from ca. 800 individuals in early summer to nearly zero in late summer. During this time
many carcasses were collected, individuals showed symptoms of red-leg disease, and blood from
an affected individual contained the bacterial pathogen characteristic of this disease, Aeromonas
hydrophila. Also during the summer of 1979, nearly all of the approximately 1100 tadpoles began
metamorphosis, but all metamorphosing individuals were consumed by Brewer's blackbirds
(Euphagus cyanocephalus). This population of R. mucosa continued to exist until at least 1983,
but was extinct by 1989. Recolonization of the site will probably never occur because streams
connecting to extant populations of R. mucosa now contain introduced fishes.

Checklist for the Title and Abstract

 Title is specific to project yet concise

 Abstract introduces topic
 Abstract mentions techniques used without going into experimental detail
 Abstract mentions most important results
 Abstract summarizes results

Introduction and References

The principal job of an introduction is to guide the reader from the broad area of your discipline to
the particular topic you will be discussing. From a larger perspective on the problem, the
introduction typically proceeds through several transitional sentences, leading the reader logically
to the specific question you hope to answer with your experiment or topic you intend to discuss in
your research paper.

An introduction also gives the reader the necessary background to understand why you are
performing an experiment or writing the paper. In the introduction you should summarize the work
done by other researchers in this area. For a paper in this class, you should have 2-3 relevant
citations (from journals, not websites) to appear in the introduction (see references). Remember,
you should be careful to restrict background material to that which is directly pertinent to the
problem at hand. In other words, you should always be able to justify why you included the
material in the introduction to your paper. The most common type of reference comes from the
primary literature, that is, from peer-reviewed scientific journals that contain the results of original
research. (Remember, popular magazines such as Natural History, National Geographic,
Discover Magazine, Time, Newsweek, etc. are not considered primary literature!)

The introduction section of a scientific paper should explain exactly what the objectives of the study
are and why it is a worthwhile effort. To be most effective, the introduction should address the
following questions:

(1) Why was this study undertaken?

The best initial statement is often a description of an observation in nature, or a conclusion

drawn from a survey of the literature, that stimulated the interest of the author.
(2) What is the existing state of knowledge of this topic?

You should start with a general survey of the topic being investigated, including the history
of the work done. You should trace the development of the problem and summarize its
current state.

(3) What is the purpose of this study?

The purpose is how you will solve this problem, and this will let the reader know what the
point of the paper is.

Finally, a common mistake in writing an introduction is to go into too much detail on what you did in
your experiment, adding information that belongs in the materials and methods section or in the
results section. Remember, the introduction is designed to explain the background that led you to
perform an experiment or choose a topic for detailed discussion; it is not a summary of what you
actually found or did!

Example of an Introduction to a scientific paper:

Although the water economies of a number of species of amphibians have been studied, the
majority of these investigations have been interspecific in nature (Smith et al., 1998). Such studies
have often sought to elucidate adaptive differences among species (Schmid, 1965; Ralin and
Rogers, 1972; Gillis, 1979). Although developmental stages of amphibians often occupy different
habitats, corresponding changes in ecophysiological parameters have been relatively unstudied.

The red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) has a more complex life cycle than many
amphibians. Following a brief larval development, these organisms metamorphose and become
terrestrial salamanders, the red-efts. After spending up to seven years in this habitat, these
subadults go through a second metamorphosis to become aquatic adults (newts) that spend the
remainder of their lives in water (Conant, 1975).
In view of the difference in habitats occupied by these two stages it was hypothesized that newts
and salamanders should differ in terms of their water economy. Specifically, terrestrial efts should
have lower rates of evaporative water loss and be more tolerant to dehydration than aquatic newts.

References

When writing a research paper, it is essential that you acknowledge any works or ideas of others
that have influenced your experiment, conclusions, or interpretation of the data. This is done by
including a citation in the text and a reference at the end of the paper in the Literature Cited
section that corresponds to that citation. The citation can be either a number or the author and
year of publication, depending on requirements of the journal or your instructor. Whichever you
use, remember to be consistent throughout the paper! If you choose to use numbers as citations,
the references appear in the back of the paper in the order that the citations appear in the text.

Statements of fact should be referenced, and in general, the broader the statement, the more
the references. Common knowledge can be given without a reference (i.e. 'water is essential for
survival of plants and animals'). Do not cite lecture notes, they are not published material and
avoid relying solely on your textbook.

For example, here again is the Introduction section using numbers as citations followed by
the Literature Cited section for this portion of the paper:

Although, the water economies of a number of species of amphibians have been studied, the
majority of these investigations have been interspecific in nature (1). Such studies have often
sought to elucidate adaptive differences among species (2, 3, 4). Although developmental stages
of amphibians often occupy different habitats, corresponding changes in ecophysiological
parameters have been relatively unstudied.

The red-spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) has a more complex life cycle than many
amphibians. Following a brief larval development, these organisms metamorphose and become
terrestrial salamanders, the red-efts. After spending up to seven years in this habitat, these
subadults go through a second metamorphosis to become aquatic adults (newts) that spend the
remainder of their lives in water (5).

Literature Cited

(1) Smith, J.W., D. Pettus and D.W. Hoppe. 1998. One hundred years of amphibian water
economy studies: what have we learned? American Zoologist 66:124-198.

(2) Schmid, W.D. 1965. Some aspects of the water economies of nine species of amphibians.
Ecology 46:261-269.

(3) Ralin, D.B. and J.S. Rogers. 1972. Aspects of tolerance to desiccation in Acris crepitans and
Pseudacris streckeri. Copeia 1972:519-525.

(4) Gillis, R. 1979. Adaptive differences in the water economies of two species of leopard frogs
from eastern Colorado. Journal of Herpetology 13:445-450.
(5) Conant, R. 1975. A field guide to reptiles and amphibians of eastern and central North America.
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

If you choose to use author and date as citations, the references appear in the back of the paper in
alphabetical order. If there are more than two authors use the first author and et al. (Latin for “and
others”) in the citation. For an example, see the introduction above. The Literature Cited section
for this portion of the paper would appear as follows:

Conant, R. 1975. A field guide to reptiles and amphibians of eastern and central North America.
Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.

Gillis, R. 1979. Adaptive differences in the water economies of two species of leopard frogs from
eastern Colorado. Journal of Herpetology 13:445-450.

Ralin, D.B. and J.S. Rogers. 1972. Aspects of tolerance to desiccation in Acris crepitans and
Pseudacris streckeri. Copeia 1972:519-525.

Schmid, W.D. 1965. Some aspects of the water economies of nine species of amphibians. Ecology
46:261-269.

Smith, J.W., D. Pettus and D.W. Hoppe. 1998. One hundred years of amphibian water economy
studies: what have we learned? American Zoologist 66:124-198.

For some other examples of how to incorporate references, see the following:

"Jones (1985) found that these lizards..."

"Since fence lizards are not found in Wisconsin (Ballinger and Lynch 1992),it is reasonable to
hypothesize that..."

"Fence lizards appear to feed almost exclusively on insects and other small arthropods (Jones
et al. 1965)."

Remember, the Literature Cited section should contain only items specifically referred to in the text
and that all citations contain the complete reference in this section.

Although each journal may use a slightly different style for preparing citations, all provide sufficient
information for the reader to find the literature cited in the library. That is, they usually include the
last name(s) of the author(s), their initials, year of publication, title of the article, name of the journal
or book (sometimes in italics and sometimes not), volume of the journal and pages of the article.

Internet References

In the text either use a number citation (1), or the author year (Smith, 1997). If there is no obvious
author for the web site then use the company or institution instead (Perkin Elmer Inc., 1997).
In the reference section give the entire URL as in the following example:

Perkin Elmer Inc., 1997. http://www2.perkin-elmer.com:80/pc/770024/770024.html

REMEMBER, you must always acknowledge the source of any ideas, facts, figures, etc. taken
from others in the body of your paper. Also, using the exact words of another author without
enclosing them in quotation marks is plagiarism, which is a violation of copyright laws as well as of
University Policy - Don't even think about doing it!!!

Checklist for Literature Cited

 Required number of references in each category

 Each reference is relevant to the topic
 Correct citation style (e.g. author and year)
 Correct style for listing references (e.g. the journal Ecology)
 All references cited included in the Literature Cited section
 Only references actually cited included in the Literature Cited section
 Authorship of all ideas, facts, etc. properly acknowledged
 Quotations avoided

Materials and Methods

As the name implies, the materials and methods used in the experiments should be reported in
this section. The difficulty in writing this section is to provide enough detail for the reader to
understand the experiment without overwhelming him or her. This section provides the reader
with a concise but accurate description of what you did. If your actions differed from the
instructions in the hand-out, put down what you did, rather than what was intended. The
information should be sufficient that the reader:

 could reproduce the experiment and get the same results,

 understands what you did well enough that there is no ambiguity as to how the results
were obtained.

This can usually be done in a short paragraph. Generally, this section attempts to answer the
following questions:

What materials were used?

How were they used?
Where and when was the work done? (This question is most important in field studies.)

Problems:

The most common mistake is to treat this section as if it were a hand-out to a class. Do not give
orders; instead you should describe what was done. Do NOT use “we did this…or I did that…”
In general, you should use the past tense and passive voice. Remember that the idea is that
a reasonably experienced scientist should be able to duplicate your experiment. You must
provide the critical details without all the minor details that any reasonably experienced scientist
would know.
  For instance, when using a spectrophotometer you MUST include the wavelengths used
in the measurement. It is not necessary to tell the reader that the spectrophotometer
was turned on. In the same way, do not include details such as setting the machine to
zero, assume that the reader knows about as much as you do on the operation of the
spectrophotometer. On the other hand, you should tell the readers what you used in the
blank tube. That is something they cannot know about unless you tell them. Usually
most people tend to include far too much in the Materials and methods section. As you
write it, keep asking yourself whether the reader needs to know that particular piece of
information.

Details that need to be included:

Buffers – give concentrations of everything in them

Incubations – give temperature and time

Things added – give final concentration, not what volume you added (ampicillin, lysozyme, etc)

Centrifugation – give g force and time (if g force is unknown, give rotor and speed).

Gels- what kind of gel, what %

Examples:

Poor:

 Take a test-tube, making sure it is clean, and fill it with 5 mls of water. Take another tube
and fill it with dilute dye.
Better:

 One tube contained 5 mls distilled water, the other 5 mls of dye at 10 mg/ml.
Poor:

 First we carefully weighed a mouse, being sure to subtract the weight of the cage. Next
we put the mouse into the jar containing the dry food. Next we weighed another mouse
and put him into another jar with moist food. We left them for two days, each in their own
jar. Next we weighed the mouse that had dried food, and it weighed 34.345 grams. Next
we weighed the mouse that had moist food and it weighed 37.426 grams.
Better:

 Two mice were weighed. One was placed in a jar with dry food, the other in a jar with
moist food. After two days the mice were reweighed.

Results

The Results section of a paper presents a verbal description of the results of your experiment
or investigation along with a summary of representative data in tables and figures. It is not
merely a collection of tables and figures without explanatory text. If tables and figures are used,
you should provide the reader with an explanation of what a table or figure illustrates.

There are several keys to writing a good results section. These include:

(1) Present the results in an orderly sequence, using an outline as a guide for writing and
following the sequence of the Methods section upon which the results are based.

(2) If tables and figures will be used to summarize your data, then construct these first (at
least in draft form) and use them as a basis for writing the Results sections. Make sure
that they are numbered and in the same sequence as they will be used in the text.

(3) Use good topic sentences for your paragraphs (a reader should be able to gather the
main points by reading just the first sentence of each paragraph).

(4) Avoid redundancy and only present representative data from the tables and figures. Do
not repeat, but summarize the information in tables and figures

(5) Avoid repeating methods in the results section.

(6) Avoid discussion of results. In other words, present the facts but save interpretation of
the significance of the results for the Discussion section.

(7) You should not include work from earlier papers, nor should you include work done by
other people in the class unless you explicitly inform the reader which parts of the
information are your own.

(8) In general ALL relevant results should be included, even if they do not agree with your
expectations (maybe especially if they don't agree).

You must remember to provide a written account of the results, even if the result is shown in a
Table or Figure.

Figures and Tables

Often data can be summarized most effectively as a Table or a Figure. Try to avoid over-
whelming the reader with pages of numbers, if the same information could be achieved with a
single graph. Regardless of the format you use, do not present the data in more than one way
within a paper (e.g., in a table and a figure). Condense data as much as possible, presenting
means, ranges, and standard deviations rather than individual data points. Present only
essential data, which should be guided by your objectives and outline.

Figures
 700 2

600

500

Growth Rate (g/day)

Percent increase

1
over control

400

300

200
0

100

Phosphorus Nitrogen Nitrogen+Phosphorus

Nutrient 0 1 2 3 4

Density (no/sq m)
Figure 3. Responses of lake algae to additions of nutrients. Results
are for 50 different lakes in North America and error bars are 95
percent confidence limits. Figure 2. Density-dependent reduction in daily
growth for field mice in agricultural fields.

Figures include graphs, maps, photos and technical diagrams. Presentation of data in graphs is
generally more desirable than tables because they aid the reader in visualizing trends in the
data. There are many different types of graphs, but the most common graphs used in scientific
writing are scatter plots, line graphs, and vertical bar graphs. Regardless of the type of graph
you use, all contain similar elements.

(1) Axes. A graph consists of a horizontal axis and a vertical axis. Typically, values of the
independent variable (the cause or what you manipulated) are plotted on the horizontal
axis and values of the dependent variable (the effect or the outcome you measured) are
plotted on the vertical axis.

(2) Labels. Both axes should be clearly and briefly labeled. Labels should include
variables and units of measure. Set up the divisions so that there are a reasonable number
and that they can be assigned simple values. i.e. if the largest X value is 4.38, then have the
X axis run from 0 to 5 and marked at 1,2,3,4,5. Do not have the axis go to 4.4 and have
divisions at 1.1,2.2 etc.

(3) Figure legend. There should be a figure legend below the graph that briefly describes
the information in the figure. It should be clear, concise, and informative. The figure legend
should be understandable without reference to the text and answer, if appropriate, the
questions “what”, “where”, “when” and “why”. In the legend, do not use terms like 'Tube 1',
the reader should not have to go back and see what is in tube 1. Instead use terms like '0.4
mls enzyme' that immediately inform the reader what variable is being examined. The graph
itself should have data points that are large enough to be clear. Do not start the figure
legend with “Figure 1 shows”.

(4) Title. Each graph should have a title that is not “Y-axis vs. X-axis”. The title should give
some indication of what the graph shows.

(5) Figures are numbered in order of reference in the text.

(6) Make sure that figures (especially pictures) are right side up!
Tables

In contrast to figures, tables allow precise numerical presentation of data. As with figures, they
should be concise and organized such that relations and trends in the data are evident without
reference to the text. All tables contain similar elements.

(1) Title. Tables are numbered in order of reference in the text. The title briefly describes
the information presented in the table and is presented at the top of the table.

 The title should provide the reader with enough details that the meaning of the Table
is clear. Do not use the title to interpret the results, though you can draw the readers'
attention to a particular outcome.

(2) Column and row headings. Column headings identify variables or data in each
column. They contain variable names and units of measurements. By including the units
here, you do not have to include them with each measurement. Row headings identify
entries in the rows to the right of the heading. Note that only the initial letter of words or
phrases in column and row heading is capitalized.

(3) Body. The body contains the data presented in the table. Data should be presented so
that similar elements read down (i.e., in columns). When presenting numbers, give only
significant figures; within columns, align the decimal points of the numbers, the hyphens
of ranges (e.g., 25-67) and plus/minus signs, place a zero before the decimal point of
numbers less than 1 (e.g., 0.1, not .1) and enter numbers in a column under the column
heading.
(4) Footnotes. Footnotes contain explanatory information.

Checklist for Results

 Figure legends below figure, figure axes are properly labeled.
 Table title above title, columns and rows are properly labeled.
 Results are displayed graphically and also explained in text.
 Use past tense.
 Data is analyzed, no raw data is presented.

Discussion

The discussion portion of the paper has fewer restrictions than other sections of a science
paper. It is the section of the paper in which you interpret your data and draw conclusions
regarding your hypothesis. In some respects, this is the most difficult section of the paper to
write. You should not repeat the results section, but rather place your data in a broader context
(i.e. why should anyone care about what you found?). Some key things that should always be
included in the discussion are:

(1) An analysis of whether the hypothesis was supported by the results of your experiments.
Your key findings should be emphasized first.
(2) A comparison of your results and your interpretation with the results and interpretations
previously obtained by others. Integrate your data with what has been written previously in the
appropriate literature. Does your data agree with current models or refute them? How have
your experiments added to our knowledge of this phenomenon/organism/system?

(3) If your hypothesis was refuted, you must provide an explanation. You should also provide
explanations of any unexpected results and describe any problems encountered during the
experiment

(4) If you had problems during the experiment or if you are not satisfied with your results, tell
how the methods could be altered to provide more definitive results

(5) Describe future experiments suggested by your results. You may wish to speculate on the
broad meaning of your results to the field of biology.

(6) The Discussion is NOT a place to simply repeat the Results, nor should you go through the
results one at a time and explain each independently. The Discussion should bring together all
of the results to try and find a common theme or idea.

An Example of a Discussion (from a paper by Rick Gillis & William Breuer)

Although these results were gained under laboratory conditions, they still establish physiological
limits in terms of EWL for efts and newts. The ability of red-efts to tolerate dehydration better than
newts might be adaptive in view of the problem of water loss confronting terrestrial amphibians
and indeed, the ability to tolerate dehydration is probably the most wide-spread physiological
adaptation to a terrestrial existence in amphibians as a group (Chew, 1961). (The hypothesis
was that terrestrial efts should have lower rates of evaporative water loss (EWL) and be
more tolerant to dehydration than aquatic newts. Objective 1 from list)

With respect to previous findings, it is interesting to note that the CAP of red-efts is similar to that
of some other terrestrial urodeles (Ray, 1958) while tolerance to dehydration in newts parallels
findings of Littleford et al. (1947) and Houck and Bellis (1972) for some of the more aquatic
species of salamanders. (This paragraph integrates the experiment with the existing
literature. Objective 2 from list.)

The observation that red-efts had higher rates of EWL than newts did not support the second
hypothesis. (Unexpected results, hypothesis was refuted. Objective 3 from list.)

The explanation for these findings may rest with differences in body size. (Provides explanation
of unexpected results. Objective 3 from list.)

As Table 1 shows, efts were on average considerably smaller than newts. Since rate of EWL in
amphibians has been shown to be inversely proportional to surface area (Schmid, 1965), smaller
animals should lose water from their skin more rapidly than larger ones. That the slopes of the
regressions of rate of EWL on body mass in efts and newts differ significantly (-0.382 and -0.664
respectively) suggests, however, that these two forms respond differently in the test chamber. In
efts, a small increase in mass leads to a greater reduction in rate of water loss than the same
increment produces in newts. Such a reduction in EWL might help to offset the water
conservation problems experienced by these small, recently metamorphosed juveniles.

The most probable explanation for the lower mass-specific rate of EWL in efts is that mass alone
is not as good a predictor of surface area as it is in newts. Newts, although generally cylindrical,
have large dorsolaterally compressed tails consistent with their aquatic mode of locomotion. Efts
are more streamlined and possess tails that are cylindrical (and tapering) in cross section.

Although measurements were not actually made, it seems likely therefore that in specimens of
equal mass, efts will have a lower surface area than newts and realize a concomitant reduction in
rate of EWL. In light of these findings, it might be instructive if surface areas could somehow be
measured so that newts and efts with similar values could be compared. With such a procedure,
a researcher might determine if there were any differences in the abilities of the skins of these two
forms to retard evaporative water loss. (Proposing future experiments and alterations in
methods to provide more definitive results. Objectives 4 and 5 from list)

*** NOTE: COMMENTS IN BOLD ARE FOR EXPLANATORY PURPOSES AND SHOULD
NOT BE INCLUDED IN YOUR PAPER.

Checklist for the Discussion

 Stated if hypothesis was supported or refuted

 Compared results to previous observations using appropriate literature
 Explained unexpected results or provided an alternative hypothesis if hypothesis was
refuted.
 Described or suggested future experiments.
 Clear and logical flow of ideas.

Adapted from University Wisconsin La Croix, Biology “Guidelines for Scientific Writing”, and
Eastern Connecticut State University “Writing Lab Reports”.